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First Intifada
The First Intifada occurred from 8 December 1987 to 13 September 1993 when the people of Palestine launched widespread uprisings against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and carried out terrorist attacks within Israel proper. The intifada ended in 1993 when the Palestinian Authority was established and the PLO recognized the state of Israel, a major success for advocates of a "two-state solution". Background After the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel occupied the Jordanian-occupied West Bank and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, respectively. This led to thousands of Palestinian Arabs falling under Israeli occupation. The Jewish settlement of formerly Palestinian areas, the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes, widespread poverty among Israeli Arabs, and rising nationalist sentiment led to the empowerment of Palestinian guerrilla organizations such as Fatah, the PFLP, the DFLP, and the Black September Organization. The PLO and its allies carried out a series of terrorist attacks against the Israelis from Jordan (until 1971) and from Lebanon, leading to Israeli invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982. The PLO was forced to relocate to Tunisia in August 1982, preventing it from launching guerrilla raids against the Israeli government. Fortunately for the PLO, however, many Palestinian civilians began to demonstrate against the Israeli government during the 1980s, engaging in civil disobedience instead of armed conflict to achieve their goals. Intifada On 9 December 1987, an Israeli IDF truck accidentally collided with a civilian car at the Jabalia refugee camp, killing four Palestinian civilians. This led to widespread protests against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, with peaceful protesters engaging in general strikes, boycotts against working on Israeli settlements, refusal to pay taxes, refusal to drive Palestinian cars with Israeli licenses, and graffiti, while more radical and violent protesters took part in barricading and throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at IDF soldiers. Israel responded by deploying 80,000 soldiers to quell the widespread civil unrest, firing live rounds at protesters; in the first thirteen months of the Intifada, 332 Palestinians and 12 Israelis were killed. The Israeli military attracted criticism for using clubs against adolescent protesters, so it decided to switch to the use of semi-lethal plastic bullets. In addition to the rise of grassroots protest movements, several of Palestine's political parties were actively involved in the struggle. In 1988, Israeli Mossad agents assassinated PLO leader Khalil al-Wazir in Tunis, as al-Wazir had helped to organize youth committees to lead the intifada. The Palestinians were far from a united cause, however. From 1988 to 1992, nearly 1,000 Palestinian "collaborators" were murdered by the Palestinian militant groups, as up to 18,000 Palestinians had provided information to the Israeli government during the intifada. The violence continued ubntil 1993, when President of Israel Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords, which created the semi-independent Palestinian Authority to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and which led to the PLO diplomatically recognizing Israel. Aftermath While Israel and Palestine officially made peace in 1993, tensions still ran high between the two states, especially after Rabin was assassinated by a fanatical Zionist and factions of the PLO broke their alliance with Arafat's Fatah party due to their insistence that Israel should be destroyed. During the late 1990s, the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas became immensely popular due to support from Ba'athist Iraq, and the moderate Palestinian leadership was unable to cope with the increasing popularity of Salafist organizations such as Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Category:Wars Category:Uprisings Category:Israeli-Palestinian conflict